Belford's Magazine, Volume II, No. 8, January, 1889

“Rumble? Frances Rumble? Why, a young man was here to-day inquiring for Mr. Rumble, and some time ago the carrier brought two letters here for you. I could not tell him where you lived, and he took them away.”

Fanny’s heart beat wildly. She was sure that the letters were from Arthur, and that it was he who had inquired for her father.

“Is this Miss Rumble?” said one of the men who had followed her into the shop.

She turned and recognized Dixon. The person with him was Teague. Dixon had just pawned a watch, and had remarked that he wished Rumble still kept the shop.

When Fanny told them of her father’s illness and of his misfortune, Dixon and Teague insisted on going home with her, meaning to lend assistance in some way.

When they reached Fanny’s humble lodging, and followed her into her father’s room, they found Maxwell at Rumble’s bedside.

A cry of joy escaped Fanny as her lover folded her in his arms. She soon learned from him that he had never received the letter in which she wrote him about her father’s trouble and their removal from the old shop. It had missed him while he was moving about in the West. And then he told her of the success of his invention.

Rumble, whose mind was lucid for the moment, said:

“You will be happy at last, Fanny. Arthur has come for you.”

“And you, too, will be happy with us, father,” replied Fanny, taking his hands in hers.

The old man smiled faintly, and rolled his head to and fro on his pillow, as if he thought differently.

The clock began to strike; it was midnight, and the New Year was at hand. The sound of bells came to their ears, and a distant chime was heard.

Rumble’s mind once more began to wander; again he talked about the auction; again he muttered the words that had troubled him so much:

“Going – going – gone!”

They were his last words. The old man’s life went out with the old year.

    Albert Roland Haven.

THE ROOT OF THE SPOILS SYSTEM

What is known as the spoils system of politics, in a measure common to all times and all forms of government, seems to have reached its highest development in our Republic. This fact justifies the suspicion that something in our form of administration is favorable to such development; and whether we regard the spoils system as praiseworthy or reprehensible, it will be instructive to inquire why it has prevailed in this country as among no other free people.

Most persons who deplore the spoils system urge as one of its greatest evils that it substitutes for the discussion of principles a mere scramble for office; that it teaches men to value the material prizes incident to government above political truth. Such reasoners have strangely mistaken cause for effect. The rarity of ideas in our political discussions is not an effect, but the immediate cause of the spoils system; and behind both, as the direct cause of the latter and the remote cause of the former, lies the difficulty of expressing the popular will in legislative enactment. In other words, we have substituted the pursuit of place for the discussion of principles, because the relations of the people to the law-making body are not sufficiently close.